Yellow Vests: Government seeks course of action after weekend of violent clashes

The French government is organising emergency meetings to respond to the wave of violence that broke out across the country over the weekend as part of the ‘Yellow Vest’ movement.

Prime Minister Édouard Philippe cancelled his appearance at the COP24 climate change summit in Katowice, Poland, and will instead meet on Monday with French political leaders in an attempt to manage the crisis and formulate the government’s response.

President Emmanuel Macron held emergency talks with the prime minister, interior minister and top security service officials at the presidential palace in Paris after flying in from the G20 summit in Argentina on Sunday.

The government has not ruled out imposing a state of emergency.

On Sunday Macron assessed the damage at the Arc de Triomphe, the massive monument to France's war dead at the top of the famous Champs-Élysées avenue, where rioters scrawled graffiti and ransacked the ticketing and reception areas.

The president also saw the wreckage of burnt-out cars and debris from rioting at other sites, where he praised the police but was also booed by sections of the crowd.

Paris police said 412 people were arrested on Saturday, with 378 remaining in custody, during the worst clashes for years in the capital.

A total of 263 people were injured nationwide, with 133 injured in the capital, including 23 members of the security forces who battled rioters for most of the day in famous parts of the city.

"I will never accept violence," Macron told a news conference in Buenos Aires before flying home.

"No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc du Triomphe is defiled," he said.

'Yellow Vests will win'

Overnight a motorist died after crashing a van into traffic that had built up due to a "Yellow Vest" demonstration in Arles, southern France, a local prosecutor said Sunday. Three people have now died in incidents linked to the protests.

The so-called "Yellow Vest" anti-government protests that have swept France over the last fortnight were sparked initially by a rise in taxes on diesel.

In a separate incident, arsonists torched a motorway toll booth in southern France near the city of Narbonne, a judicial source told AFP Sunday. Five people were taken into custody, a prosecutor said.

The main north-south motorway in eastern France, the A6, was also blocked by protesters near the city of Lyon on Sunday morning, its operator said.

The capital was calm, however, but as groups of workers moved around cleaning up the mess from the previous day, the scale of the destruction became clear.

Around famous areas including the Champs-Élysées, the Louvre museum, the Opera and Place Vendôme, smashed shop windows, broken glass and the occasional burned-out car were testament to the violence.

Dozens of cars were torched by the gangs of rioters, some of whom wore gas masks and ski goggles to lessen the effects of tear gas, which was fired continually by police.

One person was in a critical condition after protesters pulled down one of the huge iron gates of the Tuileries garden by the Louvre, crushing several people.

Nearly 190 fires were put out and six buildings were set alight, the interior ministry said.

At the Arc de Triomphe graffiti had been daubed, with one slogan saying: "The Yellow Vests will win."

State of emergency?

Some 136,000 demonstrators, most of them peaceful, were counted across the country on Saturday, the interior ministry said Sunday in updated figures.

The number was well below the first day of protests on November 17, which attracted around 282,000 people, and also down on the revised figure of 166,000 who turned out last Saturday.